


Actors on a Stage

by AriWrote



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Flash Fic, Gender Dysphoria, Gender Identity, Gender Issues, Genderfluid Characters, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pre-Canon, Viktor-centric, for chapter 1
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-28
Updated: 2016-11-28
Packaged: 2018-09-02 21:01:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8683222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AriWrote/pseuds/AriWrote
Summary: Viktor Nikiforov was used to playing roles.-A series of short fics about Viktor, the people around him, and gender.





	

**Author's Note:**

> In which I shove my problems with gender onto Viktor because there are lots of genderfluid Yuuri, but not enough genderfluid power couple.  
> Not beta-ed, and I wrote this and published this within half an hour. I will come back later and dust off everything.

Viktor Nikiforov was used to playing roles. Maybe it’s in his genetics. He’d grown up with tales of his mother’s dreams of being an actress; maybe through osmosis, he’d learned a few tricks. Whatever the reasoning, Viktor had been acting out the roles that people forced on him since the day he could form thoughts.

When his mother called him ‘son’ or Yakov called him ‘boy’, he ignored the way his skin prickled and felt wrong on his body. If those were the roles they wanted him to play, he would play them. Even if it felt like a core part of him was being ground up into dust, he would plaster the mask of the perfect man on his face if that is what they wanted him to be.

 And so he learned how to play Viktor: the star, perfection personified, the man everyone either wanted or wanted to be. He forgot Viktor: the lonely child who never really understood why those momentary seconds where a waitress stuttered over his pronouns made his heart soar.

His one comfort was his hair. It pleased his mother, who had never allowed her hair to grown longer than her shoulders; to have someone’s hair to style like the actresses on TV she had always wanted to be. His face was not entirely androgynous, but it was close enough that with his long hair people could make mistakes (even if in Viktor’s heart he knew they weren’t mistakes, at least not wholly). He knew it wouldn’t be like that for long, but God, would he enjoy it while it lasted.

It had all come crumbling down with one comment. Yakov, during a practice session where Viktor spent most of his time ignoring the complaints the man leveled his way, muttered something as Viktor skated towards the exit that made him finally listen.

“Don’t you think it’s time to cut your hair? You can’t continue playing that role now that you’re older,” he said, eyes focused on the braid lying against Viktor’s shoulder.

Viktor knew that Yakov had meant no harm by what he’d said. It was the honest advice of a coach to his pupil, and yet it had sent Viktor’s mind into a flurry of thoughts that made it hard to think of anything else.

_You can’t continue playing that role._

_You can’t continue playing that role._

When had it stopped _being_ just a role to Viktor?

“Vitya?” He heard, Yakov’s voice piercing through the barrage of ‘You can’t, You can’t, You can’t’ and forcing his attention on the man. “Are you blocking me out again?”

Viktor choked out a response he hoped did not reveal the tumultuous state of his mind, “Oh, Yakov, are you implying I don’t take every bit of advice you give me to heart? I am insulted.”

Yakov’s frown deepened, and he lets out a noise that almost sounds like a growl. Viktor laughed, and smothered the part of him that wanted to scream.

As he left practice, he booked an appointment with a hairstylist. That part of him was too dead to care.


End file.
